1. The Library Company of Philadelphia, which was founded in November 1731 by Benjamin Franklin. The Library Company began as a subscription library, supported by members.

2. A library in Peterborough, New Hampshire, opened in 1833, is considered to be the first modern public library. According to the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, it was the first institution founded by a municipality with the explicit purpose of establishing a free library open to all classes of the community and supported by public funds.

3. The Boston Public Library (BPL) was the first large free municipal library in the United States, founded in 1848, by an act of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts.

First Record Collection

1914 - First record collection in St. Paul, Minnesota, but the first report of a circulating collection is 1923 in the Springfield (Mass.) Public Library. The reference for both is American Library and Book Trade Annual, 1960. p. 179.